Greg Oates

The new Group Braindates at C2 Montreal this year were innovative in their ability to connect like-minded people, but the severe challenges with the Web-based event app need to be ironed out to make the online networking opportunities more accessible.

The next generation of conferences are evolving as multidisciplinary, experiential marketing platforms to better personalize the learning and networking options for attendees. They're also a hell of a lot more fun.

We identify who we are, and how that aligns with our networks and general society at large, through meetings and events. Those experiences are the launch pads for our greatest potential.

The meetings industry is getting a lot better at leveraging data to inform event design and strategy, but there's still a long way to go to personalize the experience on a mass scale.

Wealthy travelers define luxury in many different ways, based on who they're traveling with and why. However, there is consensus in terms of the growing demand for more human connectedness and meaningful experiences for both adults and children.

Conferences and conventions need to be re-imagined as mass-personalization platforms that segment audiences into different sub-groups to provide greater returns for individual attendees.

Cities across the U.S. are aggressively promoting their civic policies around diversity and inclusion in an attempt to ensure that all meeting attendees feel welcome in their communities. This rise of advocacy at the local level is a direct response to the inane alt-right narrative coming out of the White House.

Skift's latest research shows a clear shift in demand for more transformative travel experiences among upscale travelers, but we expect many brands will jump on this trend without offering anything significantly new in terms of product or programming.

Companies can now expand their use of online platforms to book small meetings in creative venues, because they now have the ability to message venues directly in real-time and integrate compliance requirements.

For online meeting space booking platforms like Bizly to be profitable, they have to offer both automated purchase capabilities and chat functionality with live venue staff to satisfy the demands of enterprise clients.